Due to its many functions, ursodeoxycholic acid is an active ingredient of considerable interest in human therapy; it, for example, promotes the dissolution of gallstones, lowers the percentage of cholesterol in the blood, and blood sugar and is also used as a diuretic and as fat metabolism accelerator.
There are several known processes for preparing ursodeoxycholic acid. All the known processes have the disadvantage of leading to the production of a mixture of ursodeoxycholic, chenodeoxycholic, lithocholic, cholic and isourso in variable amounts from process to process.
There are various methods of purifying ursodeoxycholic acid from the above-mentioned components.
There however continues to be a need to have available a process for preparing high purity ursodeoxycholic acid, the costs of which are as contained as possible.